


To Hope

by Fanfic_is_a_sin



Series: Choices of the Light and Dark [1]
Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: But also is getting some Jedi insightfulness, luke is a whiny baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 02:19:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4901806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fanfic_is_a_sin/pseuds/Fanfic_is_a_sin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before surrendering to the Empire and going to meet his father and his fate, Luke reflects on what it means to be a Jedi Knight, what the galaxy will lose if its last Jedi dies, and the choice he must make in order to not merely save the galaxy, but save it for the right reasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Hope

It was where Luke felt the least like a Jedi, here, alone and surrounded by the ragged silence and brilliant light of a forest that was both empty at a glance, and pulsating with infinite life at that point just beyond a good look. For all he'd learned, all he tried to improve and refine and _feel_ , he only felt more and more like that farm boy from just outside Mos Eisley. Jedi were supposed to have years, a lifetime, even, to study, think, philosophize, reason, and grow attuned to the galaxy. But to Luke, the galaxy was ever-expanding just beyond the bounds of his own consciousness, spinning out into deep space with a brave abandon that _demanded_ freedom. It would have been beautiful, if he wasn't so sure that that freedom rested on him. And now, more than ever, Luke could only rely on the Force, a presence he'd only just begun to discover. It frustrated him, not being able to tell Han, Leia, or even the increasingly absent presence of Ben why he had to do things this way.

 

His friends, he knew, would die if he was wrong. They could very well die even if he was right. Ben, and even Yoda, had been adamant in believing that his destiny was to kill Vader. He thought, only in the briefest moments, that perhaps the two masters had lost something more than their order in the Clone Wars. He had no right to think so. His understanding of the Jedi remained rudimentary. Even so, everything he did know of the Jedi, and everything he wanted to believe now, made him think that all the tragedy that the Jedi faced had carved out the one thing that made them different from the Sith. After all, when Yoda spoke of Vader, Luke sensed no mercy. It wasn't cruelty. The Masters were too wise for that. But no wisdom could spare the victims of a tragedy from feeling _resigned_. Yes, that's what he felt in them. Resignation. Surrender to the inevitable duel between Jedi and Sith. Resignation to death. And Luke could hardly blame them, knowing even the little that he did about how much death they had faced.

 

But he was not going to kill his father. He couldn't. He knew that Yoda, and maybe everyone else, saw it as a boy unwilling to believe that he'd never really lost his father, and he didn't know how to explain that it was more. Out in the distance, Luke felt the disturbance. Insects and small animals flaring bright with alarm, fleeing further from his consciousness until they faded out into the sea of light that he knew was life, but couldn't yet distinguish as individuals yet. He feared that. Becoming as old as Ben, and as connected. He felt one of the lights flash, and then vanish with the barest trace of pain. He could only imagine how Ben had felt Alderaan. Or how he felt when he fought Vader. He had tried to separate Vader from Anakin Skywalker, perhaps as much for himself as for Luke. But if Ben's senses were anything like Luke's, he had to know that they weren't different. That Anakin wasn't dead, just bound to Vader by hatred, pain, loss....and resignation. Maybe, Luke thought, that was what kept Ben from fighting back on the first Death Star. The pain of familiarity, and the fear of helplessness to save Anakin. Somewhere, out in the light of the galaxy, Luke felt the warning: fear leads to anger, from anger, hate, and from hate...suffering. He wondered if Ben had hated Vader more for destroying Anakin Skywalker than for destroying the entire Jedi Order. 

 

The patrol was coming. Imperials were easy to sense. They always created wakes. Their presence was always enforced, intrusive, and unwelcome. If he was going to change his mind, now was the time. But if he left, it would have to be to kill Vader, and the Emperor. And Luke felt, somewhere, in his soul if he had such a thing, that he had to do more than that. he had to be more than that. Vader had done terrible things, and the Emperor, even worse. And the entire Rebellion looked to him as the only person who could defeat them. To his surprise, Luke felt sure that he could. He could kill both of them, end the Empire, and help the new galaxy become what it yearned to be. But it would be his vision of a galaxy. Or Mon Mothma's, or someone else's if they wouldn't take the power left in the Empire's wake. It would be a change of faces, perhaps even of policies, but not one of principle. With a lightsaber, with all of his powers, Luke could only make the galaxy what he wanted it to be. That wasn't freedom. It wasn't _life_. It wasn't the Force.

 

Defeating Vader wasn't enough. Killing the Emperor wasn't enough. Luke couldn't just change the galaxy. He had to free it. He had to give it the chance to shape itself. And to do that, he had to rely on a power that was at the core of his idea of the Jedi, but much larger than the Jedi themselves. It was the power even Yoda and Ben had lost in the long years since the rise of the Empire: the power of faith. Of hope that Vader was the same person as Anakin Skywalker. And that he was capable of making the right choice. Once, Luke's father had been given a choice that held the fate of the galaxy with it, and he'd failed the greatest test in history. And now, Luke was going to give him that choice again. Not because it made sense. Not because there was no other option. Because it was right. Because he had faith that the dark hadn't won, couldn't win. Because he couldn't save the galaxy with a battle.

 

The thrum of speeders cut into his thoughts, and Luke set his lightsaber aside, rising from his knees and holding his hands up as the gleam of plasteel armor emerged from the distant treeline. His last doubt was for his friends. His faith in the Force, in his father, and in the galaxy might destroy all of them, the people who all put their hope in him. Maybe, he decided, that was any Jedi's greatest trial. When everyone around him believed that he was the galaxy's hero, Luke Skywalker had to decide exactly what a hero was.


End file.
